Lady Maiko (5 Stars)

Today is the last day of the online Japanese Film Festival. I've only watched a few films over the last 10 days. I read the descriptions of all 30 films before the festival started and selected the films that interested me. "Lady Maiko" looked like an interesting film, and I'm glad I took time to watch it today. It's amazing, even better than I expected. It's a musical comedy, but I need to qualify what I mean by comedy. The film itself is serious, but whenever the characters break into song there are comical dance routines. As soon as the dancing stops, everyone is serious again.

First of all, what's a maiko? According to what I've read online, it's an apprentice geisha. Usually a girl has to spend five years as a maiko before she's qualified to become a geisha. In this film the girl has to train for six months before she's even accepted as a maiko. I don't know whether that's typical or just because of the special conditions in this film. More below.

Typically a girl becomes a maiko at the age of 15 or younger. Maikos only exist in Kyoto. The people of Kyoto consider themselves to be the most cultivated and elegant people in Japan. In particular, they're proud of their dialect. Maikos have to learn to speak with the Kyoto dialect before they can become a geisha. Usually guests are told that the geishas were born in Kyoto, even if it's not true.

Maikos are expected to do everything that geishas do, except for speaking. Geishas are expected to be experts in the art of conversation, whereas maikos are considered to be too young to know how to talk to men. If in doubt, a maiko has to use one of three standard sentences:

• "A thousand thanks".
• "I beseech your pardon".
• "The pleasure is mine".

I expect that one of those sentences is appropriate in most contexts.

Many men prefer maikos to geishas because of their youth. They also wear different clothing to distinguish them.

The film takes place in a teahouse in Kyoto. Apart from a male servant, there are only three women in the tea house: the house mother, the geisha Satoharu and the maiko Momoharu. Momoharu has been a maiko for 12 years, but she can't become a geisha because it's a requirement that there has to be at least one maiko. She can't move on until a new girl joins the teahouse. Maikos aren't allowed to have money or a mobile phone, but the good thing about lists of forbidden items is that you can always find something that's been left off the list. Momoharu has a blog on the Internet, and the house mother doesn't even know what a blog is. Momoharu writes about her life as an eternal maiko, which attracts the attention of Haruko, a 14-year-old girl from Tsugura in the far north of Japan.

When Haruko arrives the immediate reaction is to refuse her because of her awful accent which the house mother can barely understand. A regular visitor of the teahouse is Noritsugu, a Linguistics professor from the University of Kyoto. He promises that he can teach her to speak with the Kyoto dialect within six months. In the teahouse she learns how to sing and dance, but she also has to visit the university for speech training. I wonder if the similarity with "My Fair Lady" is deliberate.

It's possible that I missed a lot of the film's subtleties by not being able to speak Japanese. I can't tell the difference between the Kyoto accent and the Tsugura accent. I've read a review by a Japanese native speaker who says he needed subtitles because he was unable to understand the Tsugura dialect.

The house mother immediately takes a liking to Haruko. Momoharu wants her to be accepted as a maiko for selfish reasons. Satoharu is skeptical whether she has the ability to become a maiko.

This is a feel-good movie if there ever were one. It's heart-warming to watch Haruko struggle to learn the simplest skills, such as kneeling in a kimono. It's a film that I want to watch again, but I don't know if it's possible. It isn't available on disc, and I haven't found it on any streaming platforms. If anyone knows where I can find it, please leave a comment below.